Monday, January 2, 2012

Time To Not Get Serious About Climate Change

If I was interested in being politically and socially correct, I would blindly rally behind the global warming cause, joining those who blame humans for any change of weather. I would call for government to outlaw oil and coal, and to invest billions of dollars in alternative energy sources such as solar and wind, which admittedly are much more expensive and much less effective. I really would not care that going "green" would bankrupt our country, send millions of people to the unemployment line, and raise costs for every product out there. That is a small cost for me to feel good about saving the planet, and possibly prevent the earth's temperature from raising .3 degrees over the next hundred years.

I am willing to say it: I do not believe in man made climate change. I cannot say I am skeptical about climate change itself. That would be like saying I am skeptical of air. Air exists, regardless of what I choose to believe. The same holds for climate change. The earth we live on has been changing for thousands of years. Ice ages come and go. In between those ice ages are warming periods. If the earth is capable of shifting into a definitive period of time called an "ice age", it is also capable of shifting into less definitive periods of time when the earth temperature drifts up or down by fractions of a degree. This happened before man burned carbon for energy, it will most likely happen when man relies on some other energy source. Is it possible that the real deniers are those who just don't accept this?

Those who are climate change devotees will say that those who do not buy into man made climate change are anti-science. That could not be further from the truth. We are actually anti-bad science, and there seems to be plenty of bad science out there masquerading as "truth" when it comes to climate change. Likewise there is a lot of bad policy being implemented out there, all based on bad science. Today I recommend two articles that should help you understand why I have not jumped on this green bandwagon. Please take the time to read both articles in their entirety.

F. Fred Singer, professor emeritus at UVA, writes of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project:


What the BEST result shows is that surface thermometers from the land area of the globe (about 29% of the earth's surface) show a warming trend.  But this is not global warming.  And BEST director Professor Rich Muller explicitly disclaims that his trend results indicate a human cause.

He also correctly points out that many of the weather stations used are badly distributed, mostly in the U.S. and western Europe, and possibly subject to local heating effects, such as urban heat islands.  He cautions that a third of his monitoring stations show a cooling, not a warming.  And that 70% of the U.S. stations are poorly situated and don't satisfy the requirements of the U.S. Weather Service.  It is likely that stations elsewhere have similar problems.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/fake_fake_fake_fake.html#ixzz1iJI6w7Oz




And Clarice Feldman writes about the impact of biofuel farming in Africa:
The collapse of the London-based company Sun Biofuels, which grew jatropha in the district of Kasarawe for biodiesel, has left hundreds of villagers landless, jobless and in despair. In Mhaga village alone, a quarter of the land was acquired by the company  in 2008, with a promise of financial compensation, 700 jobs, water wells and improved schools, health clinics and roads. But the villages have not been paid for the land, and their neighbors in Mtamba tell the same story of broken promises and unpaid  compensation. Tabu Koba is one of 9 in this village who received no payment for their land.We are very angry.' He says.'My children have left school and have nowhere to farm.'
'The situation in Kisarawe is heartbreaking, but the real tragedy is that it's not unique, comments Josie Cohen of Action Aid. 'Communities across Africa are losing their land as a result of the massive biofuel targets set by [the UK] government.' Legalbrief Environmental


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/two_silly_notions_biofuel_mandates_as_carbon_neutral_and_rhino_horn_medicine.html#ixzz1iJQb9snM




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